Neil DeGrasse Tyson

…and the science of smug condescension:

Here we see, in action, the signature scientific style of the Neil deGrasse Tyson era. Present a scientific theory in crudely oversimplified form, omitting any uncertainties or counter-arguments. Pass off complex claims as if they are obvious “basic physics.” Then dismiss any skepticism as the resentment of the primitive, ignorant, unscienced masses against their enlightened betters.

Or, you know, file law suits against critics.

It’s not a very good way to get valid scientific results—nor, for that matter, to promote the scientific method. But it’s what we get when we substitute, in place of respect for the actual methodology of science, an attitude of superior posing and smug condescension.

I’d like to say that I was disappointed with the Cosmos reboot, but honestly, I wasn’t that big a fan of the original. But I’d love to buy Tyson for what I think he’s worth, and sell him for what he does.

[Afternoon update]

Some more thoughts:

It seems to me that Neal deGrasse Tyson is a scientist. Heck, I don’t actually know, because I don’t read technical astronomy papers, but I assume he’s published something somewhere, actually done some science in his life. But that doesn’t appear to be his current day job. His current job, near as I can tell, is carnival barker. He’s a salesman, or an advertiser. That’s not science. Inspiring others to want to learn more may be laudable, but it’s not science. Making crap up isn’t science, either, but I’ll let the serial stalkers at the Federalist worry about that.

But here’s a misconception that I’ve discussed before:

Thing is, I’m no scientist. So while I would like to call myself a Science-ist – that is, one who believes in the nature of science and the good results it can produce – I certainly can’t pretend I am a scientist, which is one who does science. Stuff like collecting data, analyzing it, proposing hypotheses, testing hypotheses. You know, stuff that scientists do. Not just looking at cool pictures of galaxies and pretending that makes me smart. (Um, NSFW language at that link)

No. Science isn’t a profession, it’s a way of thinking about the world, and learning about it. Everyone does it, to some degree or another, every day. Check a door knob to see if it’s unlocked? You just did an experiment.

People who believe in “science” as some kind of special realm that “scientists” live in, and that “science” reveals “truth” (as many global warm mongers do, even though they don’t understand the science or, often, even basic math) are members of a religion, that is in fact properly called scienceism. I believe in science as the best means to learn about the natural world, and as the basis for engineering and creating technology, but I don’t worship scientists, and I don’t delude myself that scientific results are “truth.”

Anyway, finally, note this comment:

you make an ass out of neal tyson when it’s pointed out that he has not, in fact, published A SINGLE PIECE of academic work since having talked some committee into accepting the dissertation it took him 11 years (and an expulsion!) to co-author.

no, seriously. if you don’t believe me, you can put his name into the search bar at arxiv.org, where practicing physicists post our preprints:

“Search gave no matches

No matches were found for your search: all:(neal AND tyson)

Please try again.”

In the next comment, he notes that there is in fact one post-doc paper, but it appears that he’s just participating because the actual authors wanted a bigger name on it.

17 thoughts on “Neil DeGrasse Tyson”

  1. Here we see, in action, the signature scientific style of the Neil deGrasse Tyson era. Present a scientific theory in crudely oversimplified form, omitting any uncertainties or counter-arguments. Pass off complex claims as if they are obvious “basic physics.” Then dismiss any skepticism as the resentment of the primitive, ignorant, unscienced masses against their enlightened betters.

    It certainly resembles Obama’s rhetoric.

  2. I’ve seen and heard him on so many deep-science edutainment shows, and found it hard to take him seriously. Maybe because he reminds me of Sinbad.

  3. What do you have against Sinbad? Standup comic, doesn’t say stupid stuff about Global Warming, taking after Sinbad would be a good thing?

    1. Still, these are pretty substantial topics, even if he’s well down the list of contributors. We don’t need to minimize Tyson’s intellect to criticize his disingenuousness.

  4. I’m not sure why you feel it is necessary to disparage Tyson’s academic credentials in order to bolster an argument against the way he communicates or any of his other works. It’s also rather silly to pretend as though ArXiv was the end-all be-all of scientific literature. It takes only a few seconds to see the more than a dozen research publications that Tyson has authored or co-authored.

    There’s more than sufficient valid reasons to take issue with Tyson’s methods of communication, this half-assed attempt to tear down his scientific credentials only weakens your argument and makes you look like you have an unhealthy obsession about him.

    1. Going by the list Trent provided, there’s not very much. He co-authored a paper in 2007, listed as author number 50 out of 55, and one of nine coauthors on a 2008 paper. He was one of 30 co-authors on a paper in 1998. In one of the 1994 papers in the list, Tyson was actually J Anthony Tyson from Bell Labs, and in the other paper he’s listed 18th out of 18 authors. And that was 20 years ago. In 1993 he and a co-author wrote a simple exposure guide for CCD cameras in twilight conditions, similar to what you’d see in Sky and Telescope. It’s not until you get back to 1988 (26 years ago, when he was a grad student) that you find an actual paper he wrote himself, and another where he had only one co-author. So 26 years ago he wrote two papers as a grad student, co-authored a simple exposure formula for astro-photography, and since then was listed as a co-author four times on four papers that had a total of 111 co-authors. The rest of the cites in Trent’s list were for RM Tyson, a cancer researcher.

      Is that a lot? It’s about half a Google page, so I looked at the same search for Carl Sagan to see where his list would end. Unfortunately the Google list only goes for 50 pages so I never hit the end of his list of academic papers.

      1. I think there’s no question that Tyson is an academic lightweight, especially compared to Sagan. Though it’s still quite a stretch to claim that he’s some sort of failed astrophysicist. Much of the difference in output is easily attributed to the fact that Tyson went almost directly into an educational/outreach career whereas Sagan spent much of his early career working on NASA programs of serious import. Besides which, the more important point is that it’s not necessary to discredit Tyson’s academic bona fides to make a strong counter-argument against a position of his, and attempting to do so is not only a distraction it’s bad form (having hints of ad hominism about it).

  5. crap… that should have been:

    Looks like science by “consensus” has now been replaced by science by “condencensus”.

    I totally gummed up a good snarky post.

  6. Is NDT’s greatest achievement making kids cry because Pluto isn’t a planet anymore?

    There’s NBC News coverage of a recent astronomical position that Pluto is, in fact, a planet, and they quote our host’s indifference!

    1. Is NDT’s greatest achievement making kids cry because Pluto isn’t a planet anymore?

      Nonsense. Tyson is the man who discovered the remains of the planet Krypton, remember?

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